Python 3.7 configuration issue

[Robin Becker]

On a Ubuntu trusty system I ran

./configure --prefix=/home/rptlab/PYTHON

make && make install

and get an error related to the ctypes module not being importable.

I needed to do

sudo apt-get install libffi-dev
./configure --prefix=/home/rptlab/PYTHON --with-system-ffi
make && make install

Something in setup.py seems to want ctypes irrespective of what I give to configure; I don't actually know what the alternative to 
--with-system-ffi does, but it didn't work for me.
-- 
Robin Becker